


The Mission

by Dragontrill



Series: Broken [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abuse of modern marketing, All Bucky wants is for somebody to tell him what to do, Crap I need slogans to torture poor Bucky with, This will eventually be nothing but crack, Why modern advertising is bad for lost and lonely Russian assassins, sick Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-13 11:26:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2148975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragontrill/pseuds/Dragontrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sick and injured after the fight on the helicarrier, the Winter Soldier tries to return to his handlers, only to find that he's apparently been abandoned. Now he needs to find a new source of orders, and what's better in America at telling people what to do than modern advertising?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [The Mission](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3262472) by [ogawaryoko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ogawaryoko/pseuds/ogawaryoko)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the story of how Bucky ended up with the Avengers. I'm writing it after something like four other stories, but I'm going to move it to the front of the series. Sorry for any confusion.

The Winter Soldier was burning up.

He stumbled away from the man on the riverbank in a daze of disobeyed orders and pain. Pain in his head. Pain in his broken arm and ribs. Pain in his entire being, which didn't know what to do anymore. He was a tool, just a tool, always had been, but the man on the riverbank had given him a name he couldn't even remember now and he'd said he was a friend, that he wouldn't fight him. The Winter Soldier couldn't remember exactly what he'd said anymore, but he did remember that face, golden and kind, with eyes that were so sad. He didn't know why he remembered that face, but somehow he did, from the shadowy parts of his mind that had never belonged to the handlers but were always so weak before now. 

They were the parts the handlers always said were dead and gone, and he'd never listened to them before now.

He made his way in pain up the riverbank through the trees and onto the road. He needed to stay out of sight. He could hear emergency crews converging, so he crossed to the other side of the road and back again into the woods. He stumbled through them, his legs growing weaker from pain and lack of nourishment. It had been a long time since a tube was last put down his throat to feed him. He didn't recognize the hunger however, no more than he recognized his thirst or his pain. He just went through the woods until he came a ravine and made his way down the slope with as much care as he could manage with his damaged limbs.

In the ravine was a storm drain pipe, one that had a steady trickle of cold water flowing out of it and was large enough for him to crawl inside. The Winter Soldier climbed up and into it, ignoring the water he crawled through. He was already soaking wet. A bit more liquid wasn't going to make any difference. He wasn't supposed to let himself lie in water for long periods of time, but he wasn't supposed to let his targets live either.

The Winter Soldier settled down in the cold, inch deep water and laid his head down to wait. He was supposed to stay alert and awake at all time when he was in the field, ready for danger or the orders of his handlers, but it had been an incredibly long day, his first ever failure, and his first active disobedience in the face of an order. 

Besides, he didn't so much fall asleep as pass out anyway.

###

He had no idea how long he lay there, the constant flow of cold water keeping his body temperature low until he flushed with fever. He whimpered through the night, shivering and barely audible, afraid to attract attention even in the midst of his nightmares. He was supposed to be good, he had to be good and quiet, always quiet. Obey the handlers, hold still for the handlers, even when they strapped him down and gave him the needles or shoved the tube down his throat or lowered the device that caused that excruciating, unbearable pain in his head. 

The Winter Soldier screamed out only once in his delirium and kicked out, hard enough that his boot punched a hole in the side of the pipe and the water drained out, leaving him not exactly dry but no longer being flooded with a constant rush of cold water just below the level of his nose.

Eighteen hours after he climbed into the pipe, while the river was still being dragged for debris and bodies, while Steve Rogers was lying in recovery in the hospital and the few remaining agents of SHIELD who could still feel they were able to trust each other declared him missing and likely returned to the control of HYDRA, the Winter Soldier woke again.

He lay there for a long, confusing minute, not about being cold, wet, or in pain, since those were such common sensations, but that there was no handler telling him what to do, no soldiers with their weapons pointing at him as if he were about to tear everyone apart. There was no one working on his arm, no one in charge at all. No chair, no tube.

The Winter Soldier looked around, confused as to what he was doing lying in a pipe. He had to report back to his handlers. They would be angry if he didn't report in and tell them how the mission went. 

How had the mission gone? Everything was fuzzy. He wasn't even clear any more on what the mission had been.

Slowly, he dragged himself out of the pipe. His arm hurt, broken. Ribs broken as well, others cracked. His neck was sore, the vertebrae out of alignment. He was sweating despite being in wet gear and he felt weak and confused. He was not at optimal performance levels. He had to report in for maintenance. Someone then would be able to remind him what his mission had been.

The Winter Soldier climbed out of the pipe, slow but attempting to hide any sign of his injury, and made his way out of the ravine. He looked without interest at the ruins of the helicarrier in the river and all of the people surrounding it, and turned the other way. So little else was clear to him, but he remembered where the reporting location was. 

It took him hours to reach it, keeping always to shadow and avoiding the notice of anyone he passed, along with any electronic cameras normally used for other purposes. It was harder than it should have been and he would have worried if he knew how. At least, he didn't think that this gnawing sensation in his chest was worry. He wasn't sure what it was.

The bank where they kept his armoury and his equipment took another ten hours to reach, since he had to keep stopping to rest, to let his head clear or to let the way ahead empty of witnesses. Other times he had to backtrack to avoid the military and police that seemed to be everywhere.

He stayed in alleyways and back streets, his limbs too shaky for him to trust climbing up onto roofs, his unsurety of his orders leaving him unwilling to steal a car.

Finally, however, he reached the bank where he'd been kept, frozen in a vault for the last fifteen years, not that he remembered that precisely. He just knew this was where he went whenever what he'd been needed for was done.

Usually, he was met by at least a half dozen technicians and doctors, guards and a handler. Now he limped into an abandoned room, the chair still central, the cryo-tank in the corner, his armoury on racks against the wall.

The Winter Soldier made a whimpering sound. He wanted his handler. He wasn't supposed to be alone. Even when they wanted to punish him, they never left him alone.

He stood there for a long time, trying to think through this situation with a mind long since broken of independent thought. This was where he stayed, where he was supposed to come. Someone was supposed to be here when he did, but he didn't remember his mission. Maybe he'd forgotten before he finished and wasn't supposed to be back yet. Maybe if he waited they would come and find him.

The Winter Soldier ignored the chair. It was a place of pain, of punishment, nothing more. When he was good and he was done, he was rewarded with the tank instead, and the darkness that had no pain, so he went to the cryo-chamber and curled up inside, huddled with his knees up at the bottom of it. Hurt much more severely than he'd thought, not that he would have felt concern if he were, he closed his eyes and without intending to, he fell asleep again.

###

Two days later, when Steve had already checked himself out of hospital, complete with the stunned doctors' clean bill of health, and was meeting Fury in a graveyard, the Winter Soldier woke up again, still alone. 

For a long minute, he stayed huddled in the footwell of the cryo-chamber, staring around with confused eyes. No one was here, just him. 

Something was very wrong. He felt sick, exhausted and in more pain than usual, and there was nobody here to give him orders. He had to find someone to give him orders.

He had no idea where to look. He was just an asset. He had no passwords, no computer access, no idea of where to look. HYDRA kept its heads hidden and he was supposed to stay hidden as well. Only he needed his orders.

This would be his mission, he decided with more initiative he'd shown in decades, other than diving after a blond man into a river and dragging him to shore. He would find his handlers, find the orders he was supposed to be following.

Even more slow and painfully than when he climbed into it, the Winter Soldier got out of the cryo-tube, his head pounding, his stomach rumbling, his mouth dry and his sides throbbing. His broken arm was swollen and the fingers didn't want to curl. His metal arm creaked, the gears grinding as if there were sand or something stuck in between the plates.

He walked past all of the vault's medical supplies and mechanical equipment. He had no permission to use any of it and no idea how he would actually do so if he did. He passed food and water as well. Only the handlers ever gave him food. To a large degree, he didn't even recognize the stacked packages as food, not after the paste that had been pumped directly into his stomach for the last seventy years.

He loaded up on as many weapons and as much ammunition as he could carry without his legs buckling underneath him. Feverish without understanding that he was, he didn't understand why it was so much less than normal and only felt a flash of fear that his handlers would find him unprepared and be angry. Passing the strap of one last rocket launcher over his shoulder, he staggered his way up out of the vault and to the front of the bank, his hair soaked to his forehead with sweat. He had to find his handlers. He needed an order. He had to have an order.

He stumbled out the main doors into bright daylight in the middle of downtown DC, staring down the bank steps and past the startled, horrified pedestrians he'd forgotten he had to hide from in time to see a bus pulling up to the stop on the corner, a huge ad on the side.

"COME BY BUS TO THE WASHINGTON DC ARENA TRADE SHOW! DON'T HESITATE, GET ON BOARD RIGHT NOW!"

The Winter Soldier smiled in abject relief.

It was good to have an order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh... need slogans and products for Bucky to find at this trade show.... *wanders onto internet*


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Bucky proves he's still a giving soul at heart.

The bus swerved into the parking lot before the massive conference centre with all the grace of a beaching, suicidal whale, sideswiping four taxis, a minivan, and ramping one set of tires off the lowered hood of a lamborghini, throwing it onto its side while the newly crushed supercar's alarm went off. People ran screaming out of the way until the bus stopped and then back towards it, looking to help or take pictures, just in time for the back emergency door to open and the passengers and driver to run out, all of them screaming for everyone to run. 

A little bit later, the Winter Soldier staggered out of the bus, one of his grenade launchers poking him in the kidneys as he thought nonsensically to himself that this was way too reminiscent of driving a taxi in the Middle East. He shook his head to clear it and looked up at the conference centre. 

"ALL WELCOME" the sign over the doors read. "TEN THOUSAND MERCHANTS ON DISPLAY. FREE SAMPLES. TIME'S RUNNING OUT. DON'T DELAY."

Tardiness was not permitted. Bucky went up the stairs, leaving the bus behind, and through the central doors into a foyer with ticket gates blocking the way into the main hall. He got in line behind a middle-aged couple arguing about whether the free samples promised were outweighed by the door charge and how they should say Tammy was six instead of seven so she'd get in free.

Tammy stood facing the Winter Soldier and looked up at him.

He stared back at her.

She pulled her finger out of her nose and pointed at his arsenal. "Are those real?"

He nodded.

"Can I have one?"

He thought about it for a moment and then handed her a sting grenade and patted her on the head.

"Thanks, mister!"

"Tammy, what did I tell you about talking to strangers-" The girl's mother turned and around and saw the Winter Soldier standing behind her. Her scream made his head ache, but the resulting stampede of people away from him cleared up the line. 

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," the pimply kid in the ticket booth stammered, and in an act of true heroism, grabbed the announcement mike he usually used to call for the parents of lost kids. "Everybody! Evacuate the building! There's a crazy guy with guns and bombs at the front doors! It's the dude from that news report on the bridge. He's gonna blow everything up!" With that, he threw down the mike himself and ran. Screaming started sounding from inside.

The Winter Soldier sighed, noted to himself that at least he didn't have to pay the ten dollar entry fee - or shoot the ticket boy since that was cheaper - and headed inside to a trade show that it looked like he was going to have all to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been in a taxi in the Middle East. It was mildly terrifying.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Winter Soldier starts to receive some advice he maybe shouldn't use and the long arm of the law arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that these slogans may or may not be retired. I may or may not care. I'm purely going for a cheap laugh.

One hundred thousand square feet of space. Ten thousand different booths and displays. Posters, neon lights, powerpoint presentations, video displays, holographic displays, robotic displays, silicon displays, all stereo surround displays, one hundred percent jello displays. All of it running and cycling and screaming out demands and commands in a cacophony of colour and sound and even smell.

The Winter Soldier meeped.

"TRY IT YOU LIKED IT ONCE!" (1) Electronic voices yelled from his right. The Winter soldier obediently started that way.

"YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO," (2) came from the other direction. He went that way instead, more slowly, confused about which way to go, what to do.

"HAVE A BREAK," he was advised. "HAVE A KIT KAT." (3)

###

With the dissolution of SHIELD and the revelation that HYDRA had infiltrated them and probably every other major political organization in the presumably free world, tensions and the grasp of the proper chain of command was ever so slightly screwed up the ass, without the benefit of lube.

"Fuck my life," said Constable Beth Wilsterson, somehow in charge of this shit show at the trade show despite being the lowest ranked, newest cop at the precinct, thanks to everyone higher in rank than her either being busy dredging helicarriers out of the river, having turned out to be HYDRA moles who went down with those helicarriers, or, more frequently, going "Fuck this shit, I'm retiring."

"Could you repeat that, officer?" said the bouncy, unbelievably happy reporter trying to shove a microphone in her face while the cameraman behind her filmed everything live.

Never say anything the press can run with, she'd always been taught. Be careful at all times to maintain the integrity of the police reputation. Be vague but polite and always, always defer them to higher ranking members, to the people in charge. They'll know what to say.

Well, Beth was in charge now and it was up to her to say something.

"Fuck my life," she repeated.

It made for a great sound bite, even with the beep.

###

The Kit-Kat tasted like sandpaper covered in brown chalk. The Winter Soldier munched on it obediently, getting crumbs all over himself as he ate solid food for the first time in seventy years, since 'keep your mouth shut when you chew' wasn't in any slogan he'd seen yet. 

The fact that the chocolate bar might not have been a fantastic idea for someone with an atrophied digestive system first made itself known with a rumble in his gut that quickly flared out of any hope of control.

"DON'T SQUEEZE THE CHARMIN," (4) he was cautioned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abused slogans are from these companies: 
> 
> 1 Alka-Seltzer  
> 2 Cheese Whiz  
> 3 Kit-Kat  
> 4 Charmin toilet paper


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Winter Soldier learns he's out of style and the Avengers are called.

The Winter Soldier was really starting to miss the chair. At least then only one part of his body hurt him. Now all of it did. He was feverish, nauseous, his head hurt, his gut ached, his right arm throbbed and was swollen, his ribs were an agony. He'd never felt so utterly miserable at any time he could remember, and HYDRA did so love for him to remember misery.

"YOU'RE IN GOOD HANDS WITH ALLSTATE," (1) a nearby booth agreed.

He trudged on, leaking the occasional weapon like a bread crumb behind him. He didn't really notice as he staggered his way through the maze of booths, already hopelessly lost.

"WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TODAY?" (2) demanded a colourful sign. He grunted a non-verbal reply that wasn't an answer and trudged towards the health and beauty section, if for no other reason than to get away from the smell of food before something else bad happened.

He got the smell of perfume instead, which at least wasn't quite so nauseating, not that he could smell much through his increasingly stuffed up nose anyway. He edged uncertainly past a booth filled with fluorescent nail polish and dropped into a fighting stance when a artificial looking computer generated image of a woman appeared in front of him.

"GOOD MORNING, CONSUMER!" she bellowed in a loud enough tone to be heard over the thirty thousand people expected to visit the trade show, which meant she was beyond deafening in the face of only one. "I'M HERE TO LET YOU KNOW ABOUT THE MOST VITALLY IMPORTANT TREND OF THIS SEASON. BLACK IS OUT!"

Bucky wiggled a metal finger in his ear and looked down at his armour. 

"YOU NEED COLOUR!" the hologram screamed. "BRIGHT, VIVID COLOUR TO BRING OUT YOUR WHIMSY, YOUR JOY IN LIFE. SO THAT YOU CAN SHOW THE WORLD THE WOMAN IN YOU."

She lunged towards him, arms spread as if to embrace the woman in him and the Winter Soldier backed away, right onto the scale covering the floor in front of the booth behind him, his slung weaponry clattering together like lethal wind chimes as he did.

"CONGRATULATIONS!" another voice boomed. "YOU'RE MORBIDLY OBESE!"

###

In the classic response of beurocratic officials everywhere in the face of danger, known colloquially as 'passing the buck', Constable Beth called for the Avengers. The bubbly news reporter even let her use her phone, saying she could put in an expense claim for the long distance charges. The Avengers weren't exactly in the yellow pages, but the internet did have the number for the Stark Building in New York and Beth was eventually able to convince the receptionist that this was an emergency and put her through to Tony Stark.

She got his voice mail.

"Hi, this is Tony Stark. I might be here but even if I am, I'm screening my calls. If you're calling about Stark Enterprises, hang up and call Pepper Potts instead. That's why I promoted her. If you're Rhodey, dial 2. If you're Captain America and you need me for something I'll agree is important, dial 3. If you're Captain America and you've got that stick jammed up your ass again, hang up and go use it to fuck yourself. If you're my science bro, dial 4. If you're the Hulk, mash the number pad with your thumb. If you're either of my favourite assassins, you don't need to call since you'd probably just drop by and break in anyway. If you're Fury, I don't have a phone. If you're Thor, dial... what number am I up to? Dial whatever's next. If you're after me for money, weapons, or paternity suits, push End. Thank you very much for your time or some shit that Pepper likes me to say so I look like I'm nice. Goodbye." The connection dropped.

"Uh." Beth looked down at the phone and then called the Stark Tower again.

"Could I please be connected to Pepper Potts?" she asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I use an actual slogan, I'll say who it's from. I'm having to make some of them up for the sake of the plot.
> 
> 1 Alstate Insurance  
> 2 Microsoft


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Winter Soldier tries on a new look and Tony shares his pain.

The Winter Soldier staggered out of the women's section of the trade show a few hours later, while Constable Beth and the fluffy reporter were combining forces to figure out what form they needed to use in order to requisition a SWAT team. Pepper was yelling at Tony about how he needed a better voicemail system since she wasn't his receptionist anymore, and Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson landed in Kiev to begin their search for the Winter Soldier.

Now that he'd found his inner beauty through MAKEUP INSPIRED BY YOU (1) and learned that ALL GIRLS ARE GORGEOUS IN JANTZEN (2) - and lost most of his weaponry in the process - the Winter Soldier paused beside a shiny buick parked behind a velvet rope and looked at his reflection in the window.

Even after seventy years of brainwashing and mind wipes to ensure he never questioned orders, he really couldn't be sure that puce and orange in a floral design was his colour, even if it was in a strapless little high waisted number by Jean Paul Gautier (3) that was almost long enough in the skirt to cover his frontal package. At least the spangled yoga pants saved him from any drafts.

In a homage to Tammy Faye Baker, his eyelids were caked with enough blue shadow to humble any amount of war paint he'd ever worn before. His fake eyelashes kept threatening to fall off and were shaking mascara bits onto his brilliantly rosy cheeks. There was some sort of additive to his lipstick that was making his lips puff up like a blow fish and his hair was coiffed into a beehive sealed with enough product to stop a bullet.

"BEAUTIFUL, COLOURFUL, YOU," (4) cooed the closest of the beauty booths.

"IT MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE THE MAN YOU ARE," (5) the Buick booth agreed.

The Winter Soldier sighed and stumbled on, scratching at the itchy nursing bra he had on. His Jimmy Choos were lovely, but they were killing his feet.

###

Apparently, Captain America had bolted out of the country for some reason, Bruce was in Timbuktu or Kumbaya or someplace finding his inner peace or handing out free flu shots, and Thor was off getting laid in London. Who the hell knew where Natasha was.

That left one Avenger officially in New York - maybe, unless he was like Natasha and didn't tell anyone when he was bailing out on them - and if Tony was going to Washington DC to fight some sort of cybernetic super assassin, then Hawkeye had to come along and suffer with him.

Tony flew in one of his latest suits to the firetrap building where Hawkeye was a slum landlord, and stomped up the steps and inside. His metal feet might have gone through the floor a few times, but hopefully Clint wouldn't notice. He banged on the door marked "Super" and the entire door fell in.

Clint looked back at him from where he was sitting on the couch watching TV. 

"Asshole," he said.

"Missed you too, Legolas," Tony told him. "Suit up. We gotta head for Washington."

"Why? What's going on in Washington?"

Tony paused and flipped up his visor, wondering with glee if there was actually someone 'less aware of what's going on in the world', as Pepper put it, than him. So he'd been holed up in his workshop while HYDRA apparently tried to nuke half the world. He had stuff to do. He knew about it now, after she'd screamed it at him.

"You didn't hear?" he asked.

"Hear what? I've been marathoning Doctor Who for the last month. I want to be caught up for the next season."

Tony chuckled. "Grab your bow, Robin. I'll tell you on the way."

###

Somewhere between New York and Washington DC:

"Aw... steady paycheque, nooo!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Em-Cosmetics  
> 2 Jantzen swimsuits (from 1957? Really??)  
> 3 Uh...I couldn't actually find this one. It was listed with a bunch of other beauty slogans and I remember it, but....  
> 4 Apologies to Jean Paul Gautier. He was at the top of my 'women's dress designers' google search.   
> 5 Buick (thanks to AnonEHouse for the suggestion)
> 
> Note: I read the first scene to my husband. He covered his face with his hands, groaned, and told me he's ashamed of me. I'm so proud.
> 
> BTW, I've been on leave the last two weeks. Future posts might or might not come slower. I promise nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Winter Soldier feels despair and the cavalry comes in.

The Winter Soldier was exhausted and the longer he stayed here, the more his head ached. This place, with all of its strange devices, its weird sounds, all of its strange smells... it wasn't giving him what he needed. He was lost without orders to focus on.

"DEMAND A BROADER VIEW," (1) was suggested.

He bowed his head and walked on, tottering in his heels. That wasn't possible. He was a weapon, a tool. Nothing more. 

"WE NEVER FORGET YOU HAVE A CHOICE." (2)

There were no choices! He was the Winter Soldier, the Asset, that was it! His only purpose now was to find a handler and surrender himself to them. That was what he was made for and there was nothing else. Not hope, not want, not hazy memories of a blond with a crooked smile and love in his eyes. The Asset was a thing. It was only obedience and pain. 

"IT IS. ARE YOU?" (3)

He closed his eyes and shivered.

"HAVE IT YOUR WAY," (4) an inflated hamburger agreed.

He would. He had to.

###

Iron Man swooped in with his stereo system blaring and making a highly dramatic series of loop-de-loops that ended in a well posed landing, the impact of which was largely ruined by Clint throwing up on him.

"Hey!" 

"I knew I shouldn'ta had that week old pizza for breakfast," Clint burped.

A policewoman with the decidedly frantic look of someone who shouldn't be in charge ran up to them, followed by a bubbly reporter with a camera crew. 

"You're the Avengers?" she gasped. "Thank God you're here, Tin Man!"

"Iron Man," Tony corrected while Clint went into conniptions behind him. "And this is Hawk Guy."

"Hey... Don't call me that!"

The cop nodded eagerly and started in on what the situation was, with the reporter helping to flesh it out and make it sound more newsworthy in a B movie sort of way. The city in chaos, the hope of the free world economy in one big ass expo, a Russian assassin who apparently put Captain America in the hospital and now was shooting up the conference centre...

"Put Cap in the hospital?" Clint gaped. "Are you serious?" He glared at Tony. "Why the fuck did I let you bring me?"

"Uh, so you can go in first?"

"Screw you, Tin Man."

"You have to do something!" the cop whined. "You're Avengers!"

Damn his reputation, damn his good heart. Damn his great fear of being sued now that he'd shown up if he didn't clean up this mess. "Give us a moment," Tony told the cop and clomped a few feet away, one metal hand clamped around Clint's wrist so he could drag him along.

"What are you doing?"

"Reconnaissance, the modern way." Tony pulled out a Stark Tablet and within minutes he'd hacked into the internal security system of the conference centre and brought up the indoor cameras. The two of them hunched around the screen and studied their deadly foe.

Tony turned back to the cop with one shiny thumb up. Clint beamed at her. "Don't worry! We got this!"

###

"TAKE COURAGE," (5) the Winter Soldier was urged.

He frowned, looking up at the booth he was passing on his way back to the front of the conference centre. There were no handlers here and his standards for what passed as a handler were dropping rapidly. 

"DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP," (6) the next booth added.

He rubbed his aching head. He didn't want to hear this sort of thing. It was too hard.

"WHAT'S THE WORST THAT CAN HAPPEN?" (7)

High above were skylights that let in light, not that anyone would ever notice under the flood of fluorescents. One of them suddenly shattered inward and the Winter Soldier was deafened by the sound of an electric guitar riff as a man carrying a bow and arrows flew in on the back of a gaudy set of red and gold armour, landing in front of him.

"FCUK," (8) swore a booth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Bayer  
> 2 British Caledonian Airline  
> 3 The Independent  
> 4 Burger King  
> 5 Courage Beer  
> 6 Cutty Sark Whiskey  
> 7 Dr Pepper  
> 8 French Connection UK


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Winter Soldier becomes popular, Iron Man finds a new hobby, and Hawkeye takes a phone call.

Clint jumped off of Tony's back while Tony raised his faceplate. "All right," he started to say, already working on what he was sure would be one of his best insults ever.

The Winter Soldier shot him right between the eyes.

"Ow!" Tony yelped instead and plucked the bright red and yellow suction cup off his forehead.

The Winter Soldier looked down at the Nerf gun he'd been packing for the last twenty booths in confusion. Maybe he'd misunderstood the meaning of the words IT'S NERF OR NOTHING (1)

"Hey!" Clint cheered. "Can you do that again? I want to get a picture." He had his phone out.

"Shove it, you ass," Tony said, now officially annoyed. He glared at the picture of femininity in front of him. "You!" he snapped, pointing a finger at the Winter Soldier, working up to an even better insult this time.

The Winter Soldier snapped to attention. Could this be a handler?

"Hey," Clint noted. "I think he's listening to you."

Tony blinked. He wasn't actually used to that. Suddenly he wondered if the man was like the press and just waiting for him to say something stupid. "You," he started again, shaking his finger.

The Winter Soldier pointed back at him and shook his own finger in obedient mimicry.

Tony raised an eyebrow and watched the Winter Soldier do the same.

"Are you doing what I'm... wait, raise your hand." He put his own hand up.

The Winter Soldier did the same.

"Okay, lift your right foot." They both did. "Put your right foot in. Now... put your right foot out."

Clint backed up so he could get them both on camera. "Do the hokey pokey!"

"And shake it all about!" Tony yelled, doing a pretty good hip shimmy in a circle even with the armour on. The Winter Soldier was even better at it.

"Tell me you're getting this on video!" Tony howled, now putting his left foot in with full plans to progress on to the butt next.

"You kidding me? I've got it on Twitter. Hashtag dumbestvillainever. Two thousand likes already!" By the time Iron Man and the Winter Soldier were doing the Macarena, they were up to two million.

"I'm so sending this to Nat and the others," Clint giggled, forwarding it to the other Avengers. "She'll piss herself laughing." This was so worth pausing Doctor Who for. 

"And next the Limbo!" Tony cheered.

"No, not when he's wearing that short a dress! Do Gangham style!" Clint's phone rang. "Hey, it's Cap. He must like the video." Clint accepted the call with a grin. "Hiya, Cap! Did you see that complete fucking loser we've got? He's totally gotta be high on some major sort of-"

"IF YOU DON'T FUCKING STOP FILMING MY BEST FRIEND AND GET HIM BACK TO THE TOWER RIGHT THIS GODDAMNED INSTANT, I AM GOING TO PULL OUT YOUR EYEBALLS BY WAY OF YOUR ASSHOLE! IF I GET BACK THERE AND FIND SO MUCH AS A SCRATCH ON HIM OR A SINGLE GODDAMN FUCKING SCREEN CAP OF THIS ON THE INTERNET, I WILL GUT YOU BOTH WITH A SHIT COVERED MEATHOOK, YOU FESTERING PUS BOIL ON A PIG'S ARSE! I WILL MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE THE ONE KIDNAPPED BY HYDRA AND TORTURED INTO BEING AN ASSASSIN, YOU BRAINLESS DOUCHE STAIN! YOU'LL WISH THOR SMASHED YOUR DICK WITH HIS HAMMER! YOU'LL WISH THE HULK SAT ON YOU! HAVE I MADE MYSELF ABUNDANTLY FUCKING CLEAR OR DO YOU NEED A DEMONSTRATION??

"Yes," Clint squeaked.

"Yes, WHAT?"

"Yes, Sir!" Clint said for the first time in his life.

"GOOD!" Steve didn't so much hang up as apparently crush his phone.

"So what'd Cap say?" Tony chuckled from where he was getting the Winter Soldier to stand on his head. "He laughed, right?"

Clint winced. "Uh... not exactly?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Nerf


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Winter Soldier gets to be a blanket burrito, Clint has a drink, and Tony realizes he might have made a wee mistake.

His new handlers took him away from the place with all the signs and products with their endless recorded voices and smiling pictures. They arched high up through the hole in the skylight and over the crowds around the conference centre, the purple man with the squinty look riding on the back of the man in the armour. The Winter Soldier had been duct taped securely inside a blanket and was carried below the armoured man, who flew with his arms wrapped around him. The Winter Soldier could have broken free of the tape, but he saw no reason to. He was with handlers. He was being given orders. 

He`d never been given quite so many silly orders before, but there certainly was a whole lot less bleeding involved with them.

The two of them argued on the way back, something about how to avoid some sort of retribution that was coming. The Winter Soldier didn`t make any suggestions. If they told him to defend them, he would. For now, he was content. Everything hurt and he was well below optimal operating parameters, but they weren`t blaming him for that and so far, there was no mention of the chair. Maybe this time he`d be able to skip it and just go straight to the cryo-tube instead.

He`d like that.

###

When they got back to the Avengers Tower, they went to Tony`s private apartment with Pepper and put the Winter Soldier in the automated, high tech shower Tony had designed for those days when he was too hung over or distracted to bother with such minor necessities as lathering himself. 

“Well, he doesn`t look too bad,” Clint said hopefully while he poured himself four or five fingers of Tony`s best scotch. “I mean, his taste in makeup is so bad it`d make a drag queen cry, but he looks okay.”

Tony, still dressed in the black pants and shirt he normally wore underneath his armour, gave him a dubious look. “Cap was really that angry?” he asked with a great deal of dubiousness in his voice. Usually, the angrier Cap got, the more in control of himself he became; sometimes to the point where it looked like he was going to shake apart, but the control was there.

Clint shot back the scotch and poured another. “I’d rather face the Chitauri and Loki again naked, with a bow tied about my dick, than see Steve right now.”

“Okay…” Tony was still dubious, but Clint wasn’t all that prone to exaggeration. Well, he was, but he usually hid any outright terror better. Maybe he should look into this a bit more. “Jarvis, what do you know about Miss Congeniality in the bathroom?”

“His designation is Winter Soldier,” Jarvis said immediately. “His real name is James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. He was born in 1917 and was the best friend while growing up of Captain Steve Rogers. During a period of time when his unit was captured by Hermann Schmidt, he was injected with a variant of Erskine’s super soldier serum, distilled from the blood of the Red Skull. While a number of men were experimented on at that time, Sergeant Barnes was the only one to survive long enough for Captain America to rescue him, and any other samples of that serum were lost in the destruction of the base. After his rescue, he became the sniper and unit Sergeant of the Howling Commandos until he was declared missing in December 1944, when he fell off the side of the train Arnim Zola was travelling on, during a mission to capture him. He was declared officially dead three months later and posthumously awarded the Medal of Valour. However, later information proves that he survived his fall due to the serum and was found by HYDRA agents, who used a combination of torture and brainwashing to turn him into an utterly obedient killer. He has been used in over two dozen assassinations sanctioned by HYDRA to forward their world goal. Between missions, he was mind-wiped and kept in cryo-status, in a state of suspended animation. The only mission he failed to complete is his most current, which was the ordered assassination of Steve Rogers. Instead he saved Captain Rogers from the destruction of the third helicarrier in Washington DC.”

Tony and Clint looked at each other. “I guess Steve is pissed off right now,” Tony said.

“Y’ think?” Clint snapped and downed his third drink. The world was getting splendidly fuzzy. 

Tony eyed the ceiling in thought. “How do you know this, Jarvis?”

“It is part of the information released onto the internet by Natasha Romanov during the fall of SHIELD, Sir.”

“Great,” he muttered. Hopefully no one had made the connection between any WWII heroes and Tony’s impromptu dance partner, or he wouldn’t have to worry about Steve killing him. Pepper would do it first.

“Also, Sir, there is currently a live special on CNN comparing this information with the videos yourself and Mr. Barton released onto Twitter. There is also some very unfavourable commentary directed towards you to accompany it. Would you like to hear?”

“Gee, thanks, no.” Tony looked towards Clint, who was now happily passed out drunk. “Great. Just wonderful. At least we can tell Cap that his boy isn’t physically harmed.”

“Sir, I should inform you that my sensors show Mr. Barnes is currently suffering from a broken right arm, a concussion, three broken ribs, four cracked ribs, a bruised kidney, extensive internal bruising, and intermittent shocks from his prosthetic arm.”

Of course he was. Fuck his life. “How long until Cap gets here?”

“Approximately six hours, Sir.”

Awesome. That should give him just enough time to relocate to the moon.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone responsible finally takes action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suddenly became less funny with this chapter. Oops?

When Tony Stark first programed Jarvis, it was initially done as an experiment to see if a true AI was possible. When he gave him the sarcastic sense of humour, it was a nose thumbing at those who said that Jarvis wasn’t truly aware. 

He was. For all his snark, he was much more than any other sort of AI, even those originally based on living people, who were ultimately only copies of their originator.

Jarvis had very much become his own person, following Tony’s initial lead, but developing on his own as well, in reaction to what he experienced and what he saw.

For a long time, what he saw was his creator’s self-destructive tendencies, along with the care and concern of the people Tony was lucky enough to surround himself with; people such as Pepper Potts and James Rhodey, and then the Avengers. He watched Tony change as well, learning to care about someone other than just himself and to put the welfare of others first. 

Sometimes, however, Tony still reverted to old habits and Jarvis had learned, through no intention on Tony’s part, to take up the slack. So while Tony was busy packing for the moon and Clint was happily in a drunken stupor, Jarvis directed his attention to Tony’s lab and the three robots there. None of them were even remotely on the same level of intelligence as the AI, but they were capable of movement and of manipulating objects in their environment.

With much whistling and whining on their part, Jarvis directed Dummy, Butterfingers, and You out of the lab and down the elevator to the floor where the Winter Soldier was still taking a shower. Rather, he stood in the shower while water fell on him like rain, his head down and the marble around his feet streaked by the remains of makeup colour.

Butterfingers led the way into the massively opulent bathroom, carrying a large tool case in his pincher grip. You whirred along just behind him, gripping instead a first aid kit, while Dummy hummed along last, bearing his beloved fire extinguisher.

The three bots, which physically were computerized boxes on wheels with long manipulator arms and cameras to see with, circled around the bathroom for a minute, beeping and whirring as they figured out how they were going to accomplish the next part of their mission. Dummy gave a low whine, backing into a corner, while Butterfingers and You pressed their manipulators together, somehow picking who would do what. With a decision reached, You went into the attached walk-in closet and returned a moment later with an open umbrella. Both of them whistled up at Jarvis’ closest sensor.

“Sir,” Jarvis said into the shower stall where the Winter Soldier stood, head lowered against the hot spray. “Assistance has arrived. Please refrain from crushing them as master would be most displeased.”

The Winter Soldier didn’t react, not even looking up. In his head, however, he heard every word. Master. Assistance from Master. The Master was even higher in importance than the handlers. He was to obey the Master at all times. His head and body ached and his throat felt sore. His stomach was sick and it was hard to get enough air through his nose, so he inhaled through his mouth. The hot water helped, but he didn’t know what to do other than stand there and let it hit him. His programming didn’t include showers, just keeping still while his handlers turned the hose on him. Since that was the closest he could recall to an order of what to do in this sort of situation, he’d waited for the high pressured cold water and the mocking laugher.

Butterfingers ventured uncertainly into the shower, testing the waterproof seals on his body as he rolled as close to the man as he could without going directly under the spray. You followed behind him, manipulator extended as he did the best he could to keep the umbrella over his friend.

The Winter Soldier still didn’t react. Butterfingers whistled to himself and reached for the body soap, which he carefully flooded a scrunchie with and held while he turned back to the silent man.

The feeling of the slightly rough material scrubbing smooth, scented soap over his skin was unlike anything the Winter Soldier had ever felt before. When he did very, very well on a mission, sometimes Pierce would pat him on the head. That felt good. When his prosthetic caused the muscles in his shoulder to tighten to the point where he couldn’t lift it, the maintainers would use their hands to massage the cramps out. It was mostly agonizing, but for the few moments between when the cramp let go and they stopped, the feeling had almost been pleasant, soothing even when tainted by the aftereffects of extreme pain.

This, however, this was an entirely new universe of sensation. The Winter Soldier had never had any idea that anything could feel so good. The scrubbing sensation against his skin was almost too much, flooding his body with endorphins and making him more aware of himself than he thought he’d ever been. Nothing was supposed to feel this good.

An image of a tiny bathroom, the walls dim and chipped, the glass in the window foggy, flickered in his mind, bringing with it the view of his right hand and another flesh hand where he now had metal, rubbing a thin bar of soap between them. 

“Don’t use up all the hot water!” he heard a voice shout. The voice from the man on the bridge, the man he’d saved. The man who said he had a name.

The Winter Soldier shook his head and the robot whistled shrilly as water hit it. He froze. He wasn’t supposed to move, but somehow he was on his knees on the dark ceramic floor of the shower, the water running over his lips turned salty. 

Butterfingers hesitated, analyzing, and let go of the scrunchie in favour of bottle of shampoo. Carefully, he squirted some over the Soldier’s head and dropped it so he could get the claw of his manipulator in there and massage suds into his hair.

This was even better than the scrunchy. The Soldier let his eyes close and wept in silence at the long lost sensation, unnoticed tears vanishing immediately into the shower’s spray.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the final part.

It didn't take Steve six hours to get back to New York. "I've got a friend of a friend," Sam told him, said friend turning out to be the former quinjet pilot sister of a soldier he'd pulled out of harm's way back in Afghanistan. The sister ran a somewhat mercenary fleet of cargo planes and was also, like many former military types, a huge fan of Captain America.

For both those reasons, she was quite happy to fly them straight to Avengers Tower, which was said to have a massive landing pad on the roof. Only not, once she was in range to actually see it, quite large enough.

"Hey, this quinjet is too big to land on that building," she shouted over her shoulder into the large and mostly empty cargo hold behind her. Except for her co pilot, Cap and Sam were the only ones on board. "Want I should circle to the nearest airport?"

"Don't want to take the time in traffic," Steve yelled back. "We overhead yet?"

"Yeah, but I can't land. Just told you."

"Don't bother. Just keep circling." Steve hit the button to lower the rear ramp and an alarm went off as great winds blew into the cargo bay.

"You about to do something stupid?" Sam yelled.

"Always," Steve promised and jumped out the back without bothering to put on a parachute.

"Fuckin' hell!" the pilot yelled.

Sam was almost getting used to this kind of crap, not that he particularly liked it. Well, that he'd admit to at least. He ran for the ramp, already yanking on and buckling up a parachute while really missing his smashed up wings. Smashed up by the guy they were going to see right now, and Sam didn't think he'd ever forget the look on Steve's face when he saw that video. It might have almost been funny if he hadn't been aware of all the fucked up brainwashing and removal of identity lying underneath it, but even if he hadn't, the rage on Steve's face would have more than burned it away. Sam tried to talk him down on the flight over, but Steve just kept checking his phone and not only had the internet run with that video, they'd managed to dig up the old videos of Bucky being brainwashed and mind wiped by HYDRA. Recordings of him screaming from seventy years ago up to last week streaming on a dozen different sites didn't soothe his mood at all. A lot of the attached comments almost made him homocidal.

The stomach dropping excitement of jumping into free fall out of a plane hadn't lost any of its thrill. They were a hundred feet above the top of Stark Tower, near enough for the super soldier to jump, but way too close for Sam to even think about trying to land on the roof. Even if he'd been a base jumper, he wouldn't have trusted that little distance and he definitely didn't have the right equipment to take risks. 

He went down the side of the building instead, focused on crosswinds and eddies every foot of the way, along with the dangers posed by power lines, and figured he deserved a master's designation by the time he landed, knees bent to absorb the shock, right in front of the main doors.

A somewhat frumpy man got out of a cab while he was rolling up the parachute and getting his picture taken by a whole lot of tourists.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

A thousand flippant answers ran through Sam's head, but he was too worried to use them. "Uh, I'm here with Steve Rogers. Er, Captain America? I'm sort of an Avenger."

The man's eyebrows shot up above his messy hair. "Really," he said.

###

Tony decided at the last second to rescue Clint as well. "Goddamn you, you drunken shit," he grumbled, hauling the other man along beside him. Clint was semi awake and moaning about wanting more booze, since he was going to die anyway.

"You're not gonna die," Tony told him. "Not unless you keep drinking my best scotch." They were going to take a little vacation, just long enough for Steve to calm down and remember they were teammates. Shouldn't take more than a few months and an Earth-wide threat.

He dragged the giggling archer to the elevator and stabbed the button. It opened and all Tony's plans dropped down into his gut as Steve stormed out of the car, looming and righteous.

"Where do you two think you're going?" he snarled.

###

Bruce Banner was a very nice man. Sam figured he fit into the Avengers in some sort of scientific role, since he didn't look like he could run a block without needing to stop for breath, but his timing in coming back from the Third World was perfect because he had access to the private floors of Stark Tower. 

"Thanks for not assuming I'm a HYDRA goon or something," Sam told him as the express elevator took them up to the top floor. "I promise I'm not here to do anything nasty to you."

"I think I'd survive if you were," Bruce said and with a mild smile. 

The elevator stopped and the doors opened to let in a whole lot of screaming.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" Steve was shouting at the top of his lungs. Sam and Bruce exchanged looks and hurried out of the car together. 

"Thinking?" Tony yelled back, apparently well into a temper of his own. "What was I supposed to think? I get called in to deal with some sort of super killer who turned out to be a cross-dressing druggie higher than the moon landing! What was I supposed to do, beat him up??"

"You weren't supposed to turn him into a public spectacle! He's my friend!"

"I didn't know that!' Tony screamed, now sounding angrier than Steve. "I haven't had enough time to go through enough of those files Nat spilled to know that HYDRA made their walking death machine out of your old boyfriend!"

"Guys," they heard Clint whimper. "My head..."

Bruce and Sam stopped in the doorway to one of the large living rooms on the floor to see Steve and Tony facing off against each other. Sam had never seen Tony Stark in anything other than a news clip before and while Steve made most people look small, Stark was positively tiny in contrast. He was also apparently determined to hold his own, now that he was cornered.

"I think I should be getting some leeway here!" Stark continued. "I brought him here, and if I'd known he was a century old assassin, no matter what his fashion sense, there is NO WAY I would have brought him into my home, where PEPPER lives!"

"He's still Bucky Barnes!" Steve yelled with the same passion Sam saw nearly get him killed over the Potomac. 

"He's the Winter Soldier!" 

Bruce walked forward, and Sam envied him his calm. "Where is he now?"

Both men looked at him. "Uh," Stark said. "I don't know?"

"You brought him here and you just left him on his own?" Steve snapped. "What were you thinking?"

"Oh, I dunno, that I didn't want to run into you in a ball tying mood?!"

Bruce shook his head. "Jarvis, where is this Winter Soldier?"

"He is in Master Stark's private suite, Sir," Jarvis said. "In the sitting room."

Steve spun and stormed in what Sam guessed was the direction of Stark's suite. He nodded at Sam, who fell in beside him. With some grumbling, the others followed.

"He can't stay here," Stark said. "No psychotic killers allowed."

"We'll be out of here in under an hour," Steve gritted.

"Easy, Steve," Sam soothed. "Let go of that anger before you do something rash."

"He doesn't care about Bucky, Sam."

Sam shrugged. "He doesn't know him." None of them did, and certainly Steve didn't anymore. As far as Sam was concerned, Stark had a lot of good points. The Winter Soldier had been nothing but violent towards all of them, even if he had dragged Steve out of the water. He was going to be surprised if he saw anything to make him change his mind about that today.

He ended up very surprised indeed.

###

There was a wide archway into the sitting area of Tony Stark's bedroom seat that was apparently designed for having quiet breakfasts in while looking out over the city. The view was a million dollar one, but the room itself was rather small and cozy.

The Winter Soldier slouched forward on a dining room chair pulled away from the small table. On the table itself was an open toolbox and a well rifled through first aid kit. The Winter Soldier was wearing a very soft and fluffy white robe which had been allowed to slip off his left shoulder, which revealed his metal arm and the bandages wrapped around his torso and stomach. His right arm was splinted and bound.

While the five men stood there, apparently ignored, one of the bots was beside the Soldier's chair, a soldering iron in its claw as it painstakingly worked on the circuits inside the opened panel below the red star. The second bot was directly in front of him, spooning broth into his open mouth. The third one was behind him, patiently running a brush down his long hair.

The Soldier sat without protest, his eyes half closed and glistening and his forearms relaxed against his knees. He ignored the new arrivals, moving only to open his mouth for the spoon and then close it again so he could swallow.

Jarvis was speaking from overhead, reciting a poem in his gentle voice.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers  
That perches in the soul -  
And sings the tune without the words -  
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -  
And sore must be the storm -  
That could abash the little Bird  
That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -  
And on the strangest Sea -  
Yet - never - in Extremity,  
It asked a crumb - of me. (1)

The five of them just stood there and stared at this, none of them seeming to be able to come up with anything to say, until Jarvis finished the poem and the glisten at the corner of the Soldier's eye turned out to be a tear that streamed down his cheek, not that he made any acknowledgement of it. 

Steve, however, gave a strangled sound of pain and stepped forward into the room. "Bucky..."

The Soldier didn't respond, but one of the three bots, the one that had been brushing his hair, dropped the brush and raced up in front of Steve, brandishing a cylindrical tube in its claw.

"No," Tony said. "Dum-E, don't you dare-"

Dum-E ignored the order and blasted the entire group of them with the fire extinguisher, beeping in protective fury the whole while.

The Soldier finally reacted to that, straightening up in his chair with a baffled sound, his brow furrowed. "It...attacked..." he whispered, barely audible and sounding so confused.

"Yes, Sir," Jarvis sighed. "We may be tools, but we do have our personal autonomy." Dum-E blew an electronic raspberry in agreement.

Steve stumbled out of the cloud of extinguisher gas, coughing and waving his hands in his face. He looked at the tableau, at the three robots and at the Winter Soldier, who looked like he'd had his entire world view turned on its head, and choked down whatever speech he might have been preparing to say. Instead, he moved forward and crouched next to Butterfingers in front of him.

"Can I take over?" he asked. Butterfingers whistled and let him take the bowl and the spoon. Steve spooned up some of the mild, lukewarm broth, and offered it to the Soldier with all the hope in the world in his eyes. The Soldier studied him for a long moment and finally leaned forward to close his mouth around the spoon.

Tony swore to himself and went over to grab the the soldering iron from You. "Move it, You. You're worse with circuits than Butterfingers." Steve eyed him as he knelt down next to the open arm, still spooning broth.

"Fucking mess in here," Tony grumbled, working in the open circuits with a touch so light it didn't even register in the sensors tied to the Soldier's brain. "It'll take me weeks to fix it."

"Guess we'll have to stay close then," Steve answered.

"Make my life easier." 

At the door, Clint had his head in his hands. He looked up at that. "What, we're keeping him?" Bruce snorted and walked toward to pick up the brush while Sam laughed.

"Looks like it."

Clint peered at him. "Wait, who are you?"

The Winter Soldier just continued to sit there in weary surrender and accept the soup, and the care.

And, apparently, the home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Emily Dickenson (I love this poem)
> 
> And this is the last of this one. I wanted to write a 'bring Bucky out of the cold' story, since I love them so much, but I wanted to take an approach that hadn't been used yet.


End file.
